I mentioned before that was going to do the scary part: to spell out my explanation of consciousness, which needs to be part of the 7th Sermon, in prose first, in order to see whether it actually makes sense, by making it explicit and exposing it to the critical attention of others. I’ve been incubating this idea since one particular moment of insight hit me back in (I think) 2011 as I was walking home from my job at the time as a research associate in an EEG lab, through a sunlit summer park. From the moment the Sermons were conceived as a concept, in early summer 2012, I knew this had to be part of the 7th Sermon. But for 12 years it was just a bunch of ideas in my head that I thought and meditated about.
I had a very strong feeling it was right, which was in tension with my understanding that it rationally didn’t deserve that, because it amounts to a claim to have solved the hard problem of consciousness, unsolved for decades despite concerted efforts of very many very smart people. This quarter, I wrote it all out, and failed to find such a flaw myself. And several friends far more educated in philosophy than I am, who I solicited feedback from, didn’t find it either.
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